Los Angeles Times - 09.08.2019

E1 2 FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

never one of the leads. And
now that I’m able to see a
movie where all the leads are
Latinos, I thought it was ne-
ver going to happen, so I feel
proud.”
“I’ve done it before on
‘Narcos’ but never a big-
budget movie, not like this,”
said Peña.
“It wasn’t even that we
were all Latin, it was that we
were immediately family in a
way,” said Longoria. “We
also didn’t have cell service
[filming in Australia], so it
made us bond. But no, it was
beautiful to think we were
the only Latinos in all of Aus-
tralia to be aggregated to-
gether.”
“The beautiful thing of
the story is that themati-
cally, it’s pretty universal,”
she added. “I think every-
body’s going to understand
it and relate to it. You don’t
have to be Latino, but it is a
celebration of our culture
within the movie. Our lan-
guage is in it, people who [re-
flect] our community are in
it, it’s organically Latino. It
wasn’t like ‘Insert Latino
here.’ ” With the arrival of the
film, it seems representation
for Latinos in mainstream
media could finally be grow-
ing. Peña attributes the
change to evolving audience
demand.
“It’s kind of a great sign of
the times where audiences
are demanding it and want-
ing it and supporting it,” he
said. “Like ‘Black Panther’:
Would that movie really have
been made 10 years ago or 20
years ago? I don’t think so.
So it feels like when ‘Black
Panther’ won, we all won in a
way.”
The current push for di-

versity is a drastic departure

from how things were at the

outset of Peña’s career two

decades ago.

“It was rough in the be-

ginning, I’m not going to lie,”

he said. “My roommates

were all auditioning for way

better stuff, and there were

more auditions [for them].

But I feel like it’s kind of

tough for everyone in a way.

And I feel like it’s up to you to

work through that.”

The actor says he had to

make a conscious decision

early on to bypass stereotyp-

ical roles even at the expense

of jobs. “I was sick of playing

gang-bangers,” said Peña. “I

was like, ‘You know what,

I’m just going to play three-

dimensional characters.

And my decision [came] like

a month before I did ‘Crash,’

and then it was good.”

“I’ve always been com-

plaining that they were al-

ways offering me the same

kind of roles,” Derbez ech-

oed. “They’d want me to play

a drug lord or a narco or, best

case scenario, a gardener.

And I said ‘I want to be part

of this project because it’s

one of the few times you can

see Latinos onscreen where

no one is doing anything

wrong.’ ”

That sense of responsi-

bility also contributed to

Derbez’s decision to serve as

an executive producer.

“I was in charge of taking

care of the Latin culture be-

cause I hate when you see

Hollywood movies and they

go into a Mexican restaurant

and then you see them danc-

ing flamenco,” he said. “Fla-

menco is from Spain. And I

know it’s hard for everyone

—I mean, we all speak Span-

ish in Latin America — but

the cultures are so different

that it’s messy. But here we

don’t make a big deal of that,

and that’s the beauty of the

movie.”

“We’ve talked about this

many a time,” said Longoria.

“It’s hard to be an actor. And

it’s hard to be a dentist. It’s

hard to be a lawyer. It’s like,

whatever you’re going to do,

you’ve got to dedicate your

whole self to it. That’s why I

became a producer and di-

rector, to create my own op-

portunities. Because I think

if you sit back and wait for a

movie like ‘Dora’ to come

along, you’ll be waiting a

long time.

“I used to say we have to

educate the gatekeepers of

content to tap into different

wells of talent, tap into dif-

ferent communities of tal-

ent,” she added. “Our com-

munity has amazing stories,

Dora’s just one of them. But

instead of educating those

gatekeepers, let’s change the

gatekeepers.” Though he

eventually came around,

Derbez was initially skepti-

cal about the idea of a live-

action “Dora the Explorer”

movie.

“When they told me

about the plan of making a

Dora movie, I was like

‘hmm,’ ” said Derbez. “It

sounded boring at the be-

ginning because what is it

going to be about? But the

[film] is completely different

from the cartoon. It has the

same elements, but it goes

deeper so you see a three-di-

mensional character. This is

the first time we see a Latina

superhero, and that could be

really inspiring for kids all

around the world.”

Peña was attracted by

the film’s winking tone,

which both celebrated the

preschool-centric source

material and elevated the

humor with a sweetly meta

spin.

“Normally you read

scripts and you want to be

wowed by them,” he said.

“After I read the script, I was

almost relieved by it because

I wanted it to be good and I

wanted every excuse to do it.

I just wanted to contribute

to the motion, just be part of

something I thought was

well worth it and would be

proud of in the end. It did

help that James Bobin was

directing and he did amaz-

ing work in ‘The Muppets’

and ‘Alice Through the

Looking Glass.’ ”

“I think I just did it be-

cause Michael was doing it,”

said Longoria. “But also I

was like ‘Oh, man, you could

really mess this up, adapting

such an iconic TV character.’

And when I read this script, I

was like ‘Wow, it’s an origin

story.’ It sets up everything

that we know about her, and

then you go on a new adven-

ture with her. And so that’s

what I really liked about it.”

“What surprised me first

of all was the [scope] of the

movie,” Moner chimed in.

“The more I was a part of it,

the more I wanted to be a

part of it, if that makes

sense. Like, the more I

learned about how it was go-

ing to come together, the

more I fell in love with this

universe that we were cre-

ating. It just seemed to do a

lot of justice to something

that I grew up watching.”

“Yeah,” Longoria agreed.

“An homage to the original.”

“In an era in which Lat-

inos are getting attacked, it’s

nice to see a different por-

trayal of us on the big screen

for our community,” she

added, a week before a mass

shooter in El Pasowould tar-

get the Latino community

there. “There’s so many

beautiful things about what

Dora can do culturally.

“There’s definitely a lot of

under-representation for

Latinos in television in film,”

she added. “That’s just a

fact. I think the big message

about ‘Dora’ is that the Lat-

ino community needs to sup-

port a movie like this ... we

flex our economic power at

the box office.”

“But at the same time,

we’re in a great time right

now where things are chang-

ing,” said Peña. “So that’s

kind of cool. Representation

across the board I think is

becoming more acceptable,

and hopefully it’s not even

talked about [eventually],

it’s just a norm.”

MADELEINE MADDEN,left, Nicholas Coombe, Jeff Wahlberg, Isabela Moner and Eugenio Derbez star in the live-action movie “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.”

Vince ValituttiParamount Pictures

Latinx actors strike gold in ‘Dora’

[D ora, from E1]

BILINGUALadventurer Dora, with Boots, has ap-

peared in an animated Nickelodeon series since 2000.

Nickelodeon

These days, there’s no in-
tellectual property that
hasn’t been mined for a big-
budget, live-action Holly-
wood remake. But the
adaptation of the popular
educational kiddie cartoon
“Dora the Explorer” into the
summer-friendly romp
“Dora and the Lost City of
Gold” is a no-brainer.
The beloved character of
Dora, with whom Gen Z
grew up, becomes a winning
21stcentury heroine in this
perky action-adventure flick

that pulls heavily from the

“Indiana Jones” movies and

other kid-friendly action-ad-

venture classics.

To adapt the interactive

kiddie show into something

a bit more sophisticated to

appeal to the preteen set

who are no longer the pre-

school set, director James

Bobin and co-writer Nicho-

las Stoller (who cut their

teeth in comedy and worked

on 2011’s “The Muppets”)

have brought a healthy dose

of irony to the format. Their

leading lady, Isabela Moner,

proves to be more than up to

the challenge of walking the

fine line between sincere and

silly in her performance.

“Can you say ‘neuro-

toxicity’?” she asks the audi-

ence in one of Dora’s signa-

ture direct addresses to the

camera, with a wide-eyed

and slightly manic enthusi-

asm that lets us know we’re

all in on the joke.

Dora falls into that grand

cinematic tradition of brave

naïfs who embark on big ad-

ventures (see: Herman, Pee-

wee). Dora has been brought

up in the jungle by her pro-

fessor parents (Eva Longo-

ria and Michael Peña), and

she knows everything about

her surroundings. She just

doesn’t know much about

other people.

Her parents ship her off

to “the city” to live with her

aunt, uncle and cousin Diego

(Jeff Wahlberg) to study the

indigenous culture of Ameri-

can high schools and pick up

some social skills while they

go off in search of Parapata,

an ancient Incan city of gold.

The happy, open, com-

pletely guileless Dora might

be able to survive the el-

ementsbut it’s questionable

whether she’ll survive high

school. Diego is embar-

rassed by her, queen bee

Sammy (Madeleine Mad-

den) is threatened by her,

and the school nerd (Nicho-

las Coombe) is enamored of

her.

The quartet gets sepa-

rated from the pack on a

field trip, then kidnapped to

South America by a group of

bounty hunters hoping to

use Dora to find her parents

and swoop in on the treas-

ure.

Alejandro (Eugenio Der-

bez), an academic friend of

Dora’s parents, rescues the

kids, and they make a break

for it into the jungle.

Moner’s layered comedic

performance, which at once

nods at the “Dora” formula

while acknowledging the

conceit, is deceptively diffi-

cult and nuanced. She

cheerily sings songs about

doing your business in the

jungle while brandishing a

shovel and breathlessly of-

fers up fun facts. She’s de-

lightfully dorky, a rare com-

modity in this day and age of

sarcastic, wise-beyond-

their-years teens.

In contrast, Derbez’s

slapsticky style is practically

vaudevillian, or even rodeo

clownish, as he pulls faces

and subjects his body to hu-

miliation. It’s a jarring per-

formance generation gap.

The action in this live-ac-

tion adaptation is sanded

down and decidedly safe.

Bobin loses the geo-

graphical thread in the film’s

climax in and around Parap-

ata — but it’s never about

the visual thrills, it’s about

the girl at the center of it all.

When Dora explains

they’re not treasure hunters

but explorers there to learn,

the jungle puzzle all clicks

into place.

Dora, with her backpack,

sunny outlook and multicul-

tural perspective, is truly the

hero we need for this cen-

tury.

‘Dora and

the Lost City

of Gold’

Rated:PG for action and

some impolite humor

Running time:1 hour, 42

minutes

Playing:In general release

REVIEW

‘Dora’ star shines in a winning adaptation

Isabela Moner gives

us the Latinx heroine

we need now, and

the film is fun too.

By Katie Walsh

AT THE MOVIES